Inbound Marketing Vs Outbound Marketing

Outbound Marketing

Outbound marketing is much more in line with what you would think of as traditional marketing where you actively go out and look for customers. On the Internet, Outbound marketing includes things such as buying email lists and page advertisements.

The main take home idea of Outbound marketing is the much more aggressive manner to getting clients/customers. Another view is that Outbound marketing is trying to capture your attention. It is also much more in line with what we associate as the traditional advertising that we are familiar with.

Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing takes an opposite approach. Most of Inbound marketing works off an indirect approach where you provide value through some means and get customers to come to you. Examples of Inbound marketing include blogs, podcasts and social media.

The idea behind Inbound marketing is you are attracting customers who are already interested in some form of your product. Where you step in is that you make them aware that you exist.

One very prominent example of Inbound marketing is called SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). We go into the basics of SEO in another blog post right here.

This term will pop up very often if you continue doing more research into this subject matter. For now though, all you need to know is that SEO is the process to make your websites come up first when you look it up on Google or other search engines.

Pros and Cons of Outbound Marketing

Benefits of Outbound Marketing

Quick Results: Most outbound marketing tactics have much faster results than inbound marketing. For example, when you buy a banner ad placement, you know your ad will immediately be displayed in front of your target audience.

Easy to Target Your Ideal Audience: With outbound marketing, you get to pick and choose exactly who you’re sending your ad, email, or message to.

Drawbacks of Outbound Marketing

Can Be Costly: Many outbound marketing tactics generally cost more than inbound tactics. It’s free to start a blog, but you have to pay a lot to put together a TV commercial.

Results May Stop as Soon as You Stop Marketing: While your blog is on your site forever, your ad stops running as soon as you stop paying for it.

Can Have the Opposite Effect: A poorly-designed ad can turn more people away from your brand than it attracts. (I’m sure you can think of one brand you avoid because of the way they advertise – tell us in the comments!)

Pros and Cons of Inbound Marketing?

Benefits of Inbound Marketing

Often More Budget-Friendly: Starting a blog, interacting on social media, and even publishing a small ebook don’t cost anything but time.

Results Are Ongoing: A quality blog will only continue to gain links and traffic as time goes on, and your ebook lives on as a marketing tool without any further effort from you.

Less Intrusive: Inbound marketing tends to be more audience-friendly and less intrusive, since it lets your audience seek you out when they need you instead of the other way around.

Drawbacks of Inbound Marketing

Takes More Time to Get Results: A blog takes time to pick up steam, and increased brand recognition doesn’t immediately translate into increased revenue.

Can Take More Strategy to Reach the Right Audience: With inbound marketing, you’re attracting your ideal audience instead of seeking them out. You need to know your audience very well in order to create the content that attracts the right people.

Can Be Very Competitive in Some Industries: Some markets and industries are already saturated with high-quality blogs, social media accounts, search-engine-optimized content, and more. It’s extremely challenging to get a foothold in an industry already full of inbound marketing.

So Which One?

By the time you read this far, you should understand, just basically, what Inbound and Outbound marketing are and why any of this matters to you. So the next obvious step is, well what should I do with this?

Here’s the thing, people will argue as to which method works better. What is important though isn’t just what other people think, it is about what will work better for you.

Both forms of marketing are effective. The difference is how they are effective. You need to know your market and how it will respond to different types of marketing. Most importantly, you have to do them right. If you try either approach without much effort, it will not work out.